Instituted in March 2015, the ‘Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize’ unveiled its first winner amidst much fanfare in Jaipur Bookmark, the sister festival to the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival that felicitates the publishing industry on January 22nd, 2016 at Narain Niwas Palace Hotel during the session ‘Books and Covers: Text, Graphics and Design’ with speakers Priti Paul, Dayanita Singh, Aman Nath, Namita Gokhale, Marc Parent (Taschen), moderated by Alka Pande.

After much deliberation as well as discussion, the jury chose the final winner based on the balance of graphics and narrative and how well the cover was able to decode the inner intricacies of the book it represented. The winner was awarded with a citation, trophy and prize. In spite of the close battle among the six contenders, it was finally Bena Sareen who took home the prize for her succinct yet deeply layered cover design for Leila Seth’s ‘Talking of Justice’, published by Aleph.

Jury member as well as Director, Apeejay Surrendra Group and the creative force behind the Oxford Bookstores, Priti Paul while talking about the Prize and its winner commented, ‘Though we say never judge a book by its cover, in reality a book cover summaries the essence of the story. We at Oxford Bookstore value creativity and design highly and through this award we aim to give the young graphic designers and artists exposure for the hard work they have been doing in making these covers a success.’

The selected covers from the longlist, the shortlist as well as the winning entry will be on display at the Mandi House Metro Station from 22nd January 2016 onwards for three months, also coinciding with the India Art Fair.

The Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize is a first of its kind award for brilliance in book design, an attempt by the iconic bookstore to recognize and encourage the extraordinary work of illustrators, designers and publishers throughout India.

The much awaited shortlist was announced at the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival on 15th January, at the Oxford Bookstore, Kolkata during the session ‘Judging a Book By Its Cover: Art of the Book Cover’ with Alka Pande, Aman Nath and Marc Parent. The shortlist consisted of Leila Seth’s Talking of Justice, Romesh Gunesekera’s Noon Tide Toll, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s My Paper Half, Stephen Alter’s Becoming a Mountain, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa’s A Home in Tibet, Sumi Krishna’s Gendrescapes, Arundhathi Subramanium’s Eating God and Norul Hasan’s Meena Kumari: The Poet. Oxford Bookstores have been pushing the contours of the publishing industry towards newer paradigms and this award works towards promoting that same desire.